


Our Hearts are Wrong

by littlegreenfish



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Playlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2321729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlegreenfish/pseuds/littlegreenfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Regina is good now. She’s trying. She’s on our side. We can trust her." But can Emma trust herself? Written for Swan Queen Big Bang Summer 2014!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hearts are Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the art/playlist entitled "Our Hearts are Wrong" for the SQBB! :-)

1\. Wild Creatures

Regina is good now. She’s trying. She’s on our side. We can trust her.

These are the words that Emma parrots off to the citizens of Storybrooke who retain predatory gazes as Regina walks down the street to pick Henry up from school. These are the words that the Charmings tell at dinner, nodding assuredly at one another as they graciously accept the mayor’s invitation to join her for dinner Sunday night.

These are the words that Emma tells herself when her heart flutters and her cheeks burn as Regina walks down the street to pick Henry up from school.

But then, Sunday night at dinner, Snow White will say something tactless. Regina’s features will tighten, and Emma will grip her steak knife tightly because for a moment Henry’s loving mother is gone and she swears that Cora is at the table.

The next day, Emma will repeat to herself that Regina is good and Regina is trying, but she won’t look at the mayor as she picks up their son at the bus stop.

2\. Neutered Fruit

At first, Regina doesn’t noticed.

After all, for her whole life she has been observed. Her childhood was spent under Cora’s watchful gaze, making sure that her daughter’s every step took her closer to the throne. Then it had been the court who watched her, judging her as Leopold’s wife and their leader.

Everyone had watched the Evil Queen, because they had feared her.

Henry had stared at her with adoration and love, until Mary Margaret had given him that damn book and the world had started to turn again.

In any case, Regina Mills could not remember a time when all eyes had not been on her.

But this—the way that the back of her neck prickled and the tips of her ears felt hot and red—this was different. This was not her mother, or Leopold, or her son. This was the Savior.

Emma was watching her, and Regina could not for the life of her figure out why. Then there came a day when she realized that she was staring back.

3\. True Love Kills the Fairy Tale

Emma likes to think that she doesn’t have much in common with Regina, but she can’t ignore that what they do share is arguably the most important thing in either of their lives: Henry.

Their moral compasses might have been pointing in different directions, but they shared True Love—their son—and that was enough to force occasional amicability between the two women.

Henry had, ultimately, been the one to change Regina. Being a parent had put love in her life for the first time in a long time, and just as she’d sung her infant son lullabies, motherhood had slowly (for a time) rocked the Evil Queen to sleep.

It brings a smile to Emma’s face to watch Regina as she zips up Henry’s jacket or makes him breakfast. It brings her happiness that she can’t explain when the two of them—together, as parents—pull their son out of school for lunch.

She can’t stop looking at Regina, and wonders where the Evil Queen has gone.

It’s this immense, uncontrollable, love for their son that allows Emma to see what Regina looks like outside of Henry’s book. Outside of the fairytale.

4\. Our Hell

As Regina realizes that Emma is watching her, she stops watching Emma. At first, the amount of restrain it takes not to look to Emma every time that she enters a room is shocking.

She finds herself thinking about Emma’s smile even if she doesn’t see it quite as often now that she doesn’t seek out the other woman’s face. The back of her neck still prickles at first, and she knows that the Savior is still staring.

Then, little by little, even that stops.

Emma isn’t watching her anymore, and a persistent ache emerges in Regina’s chest as she realizes that although they have not been fighting, the Evil Queen and the Savior are ignoring one another.

Their words are short; their shoulders are tense.

As Regina bursts into tears in the bathroom for no reason at all after a potluck at Granny’s, she refuses to blame it on the fact that she and Emma have not spoken in weeks, and instead decides that she is just tired.

In any case, for whatever the reason, this feels like hell.

5\. Our Hearts are Wrong

Emma cannot explain with words (she’s never been great with words, that is no secret) how fucking furious she is. It’s been at least two months since Regina has said two words to her, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

They’re ignoring each other, but somehow no one else has noticed. No one else realizes that something is wrong. There are no knowing glances from Snow. Granny hasn’t given her a piece of straightforward, practical advice that fixes everything.

It’s ridiculous how much she misses Regina’s sense of humor, and her smile.

She’s pissed at Regina, and she doesn’t realize why until she sees Jefferson lean in and try to kiss Regina at the Rabbit Hole. Rage fills her to the core, until Regina rejects his advance.

Joy floods Emma, and she realizes, with due horror, what the problem is.

Regina accidentally catches her eye for the first time in weeks, and Emma’s face immediately turns red.

They leave the bar at the same time for no real reason, and as Regina turns to get into her car, Emma grabs her hand.

“There’s something wrong with me.” She whispers, finding no comfort in the fact that Regina looks equally afraid as they both lean forward.

6\. Crane Your Neck

It’s startling just how fast things move after the kiss.

They’re still not really looking at each other, but it’s because behind clothes doors they’re both doing much more than looking. Regina has never felt like this before. Her skin burns under Emma’s touch, and her jaw hurts from laughing at jokes that she’s never found amusing in the past.

The rush is the sort that she hasn’t felt since her very first kisses, but she’d never consciously compare Emma to Daniel.

Regina is very, very aware how wrong it is to carry on the affair, but she can’t stop. They’ve both tried. Talked about it. Tried to stop it.

Eventually they decide that this is the last time. They can’t do it any longer.

After only a day, Regina is hungry for Emma’s touch and they end up in the back of the deathtrap, parked in the harbor, tearing each other’s clothes off.

Because it doesn’t make sense to pretend they’re not at least friends, they start looking at each other again, though now the staring has a new purpose.

When Regina senses Emma’s eyes on her, it’s not just the back of her neck that prickles.

7\. Still

Regina worries every now and then that they’re out of control, but it’s such a slow and easy descent into madness that she doesn’t even mind. This isn’t how she expected it to be—it should be angry and violent and hard.

Instead, even though learning to love Emma is certainly painful, it’s the easiest thing that Regina has ever done.

They’re both fully aware of how dangerous it is to continue seeing one another. After all, what would Mary Margaret say? What would their son say?

Sometimes, in the dark when they’re alone, they’ll say the cruelest things that they can to one another in an attempt to be driven out of the other’s bed. It never works, and instead almost always end up making love instead.

The things that Emma says should taste bitter, but instead they are somehow the sweetest things that Regina has ever heard.

8\. Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone

Loving Regina hurts because it is wrong, and because Emma is fully convinced that things between them are going to end in an inferno of carnage and pain.

Despite that, she’s begun holding the mayor’s hand under the dinner table even when her parents are present. There’s a table cloth and they can’t see. At first Regina objected and pulled her hand away instantly, but now it’s become tradition.

She kisses Regina awake sometimes, and likes to hold her as they fall asleep. The affair (if that’s what it is—they’re both single, after all) has carried on for over a year when Emma accidentally utters three of the truest words that she’s ever spoken.

“I love you.”

They’re not even having sex—they’re just laying together in the dark. She expects Regina to bolt, but instead the other woman simply starts crying. Her reply nearly breaks Emma’s heart, and she realizes that even in their most passionate of moments she has never seen the usually composed—sometimes even seemingly robotic, or stony—queen look so simultaneously pleased and heartbroken.

“How?” Regina whispers. “How could you love me?”

9\. Recover

Emma eventually coaxes an “I love you, too” out of Regina, and they both realize that they need to talk. This isn’t about lust—or even love. It’s about trust.

“Can you promise me that you’ve changed?” Emma asks, because she needs to know before it’s too late to turn back. Hell, it might already be too late but it would be nice to get an answer.

“I have.” Regina is loosely gripping Emma’s wrist as they lay in bed looking up at the ceiling, the light dim. It’s just before the sunrise. “…but I worry that I haven’t changed enough.”

Emma nods slowly, and tugs Regina’s fingers down into her own.

“Because of you.” Regina adds. “None of this would have happened if not for you. And Henry, of course.”

“That’s not true.” Emma scoffs, eager to get out of the spotlight. “Don’t credit me for your hard work. That’s not like you.” Regina squeezes her hand, and she smiles. “…I’ve changed, too.” She added.

“Was it for the better?” Regina asks.

“I don’t know. But lately, it’s been for you.”

10\. Take Me As I Am

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Regina asks. They’ve both said it to one another a dozen times since getting up in the morning.

“I’m sure.” Emma says, because she has to be. She fucking has to want to do this. “It’s been years, Regina—everyone’s asking questions about why we aren’t swooning into the arms of gross pirates.”

“You can’t swoon into someone’s arms.” Regina says drying, her pinched features giving away how nervous she is.

“Well, too bad—because I might have to swoon into yours if they take this the wrong way.”

They’ve been sleeping together for three years. They’ve been in love for two. Things are good—almost perfect at times—save for one, fairly important, thing.

Nobody knows about them.

It was difficult coming to an agreement about how to tell people. Emma’s family would have to be first—and Henry, of course. They would also be the most difficult to come out to.

“You know that this will make it official. You’ll have to take me as I am—warts and all.” Regina adds.

Emma snorts, thinking about Halloween decorations of witches covered in warts. Regina doesn’t have any—but she does have the cutest mole on her ass.

“What’s so funny?” Regina almost snaps.

“Nothing—nothing!” Emma assures her. “I just…I love you. That’s all.”

“I love you, too.” The mayor’s voice softens.

Emma squeezes Regina’s hand, and opens the door to Mary Margaret’s apartment.


End file.
